Raleigh

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Title:     Raleigh
Author: Alfred Noyes [More Titles by Noyes]

Ben was our only guest that day. His tribe
Had flown to their new shrine--the Apollo Room,
To which, though they enscrolled his golden verse
Above their doors like some great-fruited vine,
Ben still preferred our _Mermaid_, and to smoke
Alone in his old nook; perhaps to hear
The voices of the dead,
The voices of his old companions.
Hovering near him,--Will and Kit and Rob.

"Our Ocean-shepherd from the Main-deep sea,
Raleigh," he muttered, as I brimmed his cup,
"Last of the men that broke the fleets of Spain,
'Twas not enough to cage him, sixteen years,
Rotting his heart out in the Bloody Tower,
But they must fling him forth in his old age
To hunt for El Dorado. Then, mine host,
Because his poor old ship _The Destiny_
Smashes the Spaniard, but comes tottering home
Without the Spanish gold, our gracious king,
To please a catamite,
Sends the old lion back to the Tower again.
The friends of Spain will send him to the block
This time. That male Salome, Buckingham,
Is dancing for his head. Raleigh is doomed."
A shadow stood in the doorway. We looked up;
And there, but O, how changed, how worn and grey,
Sir Walter Raleigh, like a hunted thing,
Stared at us.

"Ben," he said, and glanced behind him.
Ben took a step towards him.
"O, my God,
Ben," whispered the old man in a husky voice,
Half timorous and half cunning, so unlike
His old heroic self that one might weep
To hear it, "Ben, I have given them all the slip!
I may be followed. Can you hide me here
Till it grows dark?"
Ben drew him quickly in, and motioned me
To lock the door. "Till it grows dark," he cried,
"My God, that you should ask it!"
"Do not think,
Do not believe that I am quite disgraced,"
The old man faltered, "for they'll say it, Ben;
And when my boy grows up, they'll tell him, too,
His father was a coward. I do cling
To life for many reasons, not from fear
Of death. No, Ben, I can disdain that still;
But--there's my boy!"
Then all his face went blind.
He dropt upon Ben's shoulder and sobbed outright,
"They are trying to break my pride, to break my pride!"
The window darkened, and I saw a face
Blurring the panes. Ben gripped the old man's arm,
And led him gently to a room within,
Out of the way of guests.
"Your pride," he said,
"That is the pride of England!"
At that name--
_England!_--
As at a signal-gun, heard in the night
Far out at sea, the weather and world-worn man,
That once was Raleigh, lifted up his head.
Old age and weakness, weariness and fear
Fell from him like a cloak. He stood erect.
His eager eyes, full of great sea-washed dawns,
Burned for a moment with immortal youth,
While tears blurred mine to see him.
"You do think
That England will remember? You do think it?"
He asked with a great light upon his face.
Ben bowed his head in silence.

* * * *

"I have wronged
My cause by this," said Raleigh. "Well they know it
Who left this way for me. I have flung myself
Like a blind moth into this deadly light
Of freedom. Now, at the eleventh hour,
Is it too late? I might return and--"
"No!
Not now!" Ben interrupted. "I'd have said
Laugh at the headsman sixteen years ago,
When England was awake. She will awake
Again. But now, while our most gracious king,
Who hates tobacco, dedicates his prayers
To Buckingham--
This is no land for men that, under God,
Shattered the Fleet Invincible."
A knock
Startled us, at the outer door. "My friend
Stukeley," said Raleigh, "if I know his hand.
He has a ketch will carry me to France,
Waiting at Tilbury."
I let him in,--
A lean and stealthy fellow, Sir Lewis Stukeley,--
liked him little. He thought much of his health,
More of his money bags, and most of all
On how to run with all men all at once
For his own profit. At the _Mermaid Inn_
Men disagreed in friendship and in truth;
But he agreed with all men, and his life
Was one soft quag of falsehood. Fugitives
Must use false keys, I thought; and there was hope
For Raleigh if such a man would walk one mile
To serve him now. Yet my throat moved to see him
Usurping, with one hand on Raleigh's arm,
A kind of ownership. "_Lend me ten pounds_,"
Were the first words he breathed in the old man's ear,
And Raleigh slipped his purse into his hand.

* * * *

Just over Bread Street hung the bruised white moon
When they crept out. Sir Lewis Stukeley's watch-dog,
A derelict bo'sun, with a mulberry face,
Met them outside. "The coast quite clear, eh, Hart?"
Said Stukeley. "Ah, that's good. Lead on, then, quick."
And there, framed in the cruddle of moonlit clouds
That ended the steep street, dark on its light,
And standing on those glistening cobblestones
Just where they turned to silver, Raleigh looked back
Before he turned the corner. He stood there.
A figure like foot-feathered Mercury,
Tall, straight and splendid, waving his plumed hat
To Ben, and taking his last look, I felt,
Upon our _Mermaid Tavern_. As he paused,
His long fantastic shadow swayed and swept
Against our feet. Then, like a shadow, he passed.

"It is not right," said Ben, "it is not right.
Why did they give the old man so much grace?
Witness and evidence are what they lack.
Would you trust Stukeley--not to draw him out?
Raleigh was always rash. A phrase or two
Will turn their murderous axe into a sword
Of righteousness--

Why, come to think of it,
Blackfriar's Wharf, last night, I landed there,
And--no, by God!--Raleigh is not himself,
The tide will never serve beyond Gravesend.
It is a trap! Come on! We'll follow them!
Quick! To the river side!"--
We reached the wharf
Only to see their wherry, a small black cloud
Dwindling far down that running silver road.
Ben touched my arm.
"Look there," he said, pointing up-stream.
The moon
Glanced on a cluster of pikes, like silver thorns,
Three hundred yards away, a little troop
Of weaponed men, embarking hurriedly.
Their great black wherry clumsily swung about,
Then, with twelve oars for legs, came striding down,
An armoured beetle on the glittering trail
Of some small victim.
Just below our wharf
A little dinghy waddled.
Ben cut the painter, and without one word
Drew her up crackling thro' the lapping water,
Motioned me to the tiller, thrust her off,
And, pulling with one oar, backing with the other,
Swirled her round and down, hard on the track
Of Raleigh. Ben was an old man now but tough,
O tough as a buccaneer. We distanced them.
His oar blades drove the silver boiling back.
By Broken Wharf the beetle was a speck.
It dwindled by Queen Hythe and the Three Cranes.
By Bellyn's Gate we had left it, out of sight.
By Custom House and Galley Keye we shot
Thro' silver all the way, without one glimpse
Of Raleigh. Then a dreadful shadow fell
And over us the Tower of London rose
Like ebony; and, on the glittering reach
Beyond it, I could see the small black cloud
That carried the great old seaman slowly down
Between the dark shores whence in happier years
The throng had cheered his golden galleons out,
And watched his proud sails filling for Cathay.
There, as through lead, we dragged by Traitor's Gate,
There, in the darkness, under the Bloody Tower,
There, on the very verge of victory,
Ben gasped and dropped his oars.
"Take one and row," he said, "my arms are numbed.
We'll overtake him yet!" I clambered past him,
And took the bow oar.

Once, as the pace flagged,
Over his shoulder he turned his great scarred face
And snarled, with a trickle of blood on his coarse lips,
"Hard!"--
And blood and fire ran through my veins again,
For half a minute more.

Yet we fell back.
Our course was crooked now. And suddenly
A grim black speck began to grow behind us,
Grow like the threat of death upon old age.
Then, thickening, blackening, sharpening, foaming, swept
Up the bright line of bubbles in our wake,
That armoured wherry, with its long twelve oars
All well together now.

"Too late," gasped Ben,
His ash-grey face uplifted to the moon,
One quivering hand upon the thwart behind him,
A moment. Then he bowed over his knees
Coughing. "But we'll delay them. We'll be drunk,
And hold the catch-polls up!"

We drifted down
Before them, broadside on. They sheered aside.
Then, feigning a clumsy stroke, Ben drove our craft
As they drew level, right in among their blades.
There was a shout, an oath. They thrust us off;
And then we swung our nose against their bows
And pulled them round with every well-meant stroke.
A full half minute, ere they won quite free,
Cursing us for a pair of drunken fools.

We drifted down behind them.

"There's no doubt,"
Said Ben, "the headsman waits behind all this
For Raleigh. This is a play to cheat the soul
Of England, teach the people to applaud
The red fifth act."
Without another word we drifted down
For centuries it seemed, until we came
To Greenwich.
Then up the long white burnished reach there crept
Like little sooty clouds the two black boats
To meet us.

"He is in the trap," said Ben,
"And does not know it yet. See, where he sits
By Stukeley as by a friend."

Long after this,
We heard how Raleigh, simply as a child,
Seeing the tide would never serve him now,
And they must turn, had taken from his neck
Some trinkets that he wore. "Keep them," he said
To Stukeley, "in remembrance of this night."

He had no doubts of Stukeley when he saw
The wherry close beside them. He but wrapped
His cloak a little closer round his face.
Our boat rocked in their wash when Stukeley dropped
The mask. We saw him give the sign, and heard
His high-pitched quavering voice--"IN THE KING'S NAME!"
Raleigh rose to his feet. "I am under arrest?"
He said, like a dazed man.

And Stukeley laughed.
Then, as he bore himself to the grim end,
All doubt being over, the old sea-king stood
Among those glittering points, a king indeed.
The black boats rocked. We heard his level voice,
"_Sir Lewis, these actions never will turn out
To your good credit._" Across the moonlit Thames
It rang contemptuously, cold as cold steel,
And passionless as the judgment that ends all.

* * * *

Some three months later, Raleigh's widow came
To lodge a se'nnight at the Mermaid Inn.
His house in Bread Street was no more her own,
But in the hands of Stukeley, who had reaped
A pretty harvest ...
She kept close to her room, and that same night,
Being ill and with some fever, sent her maid
To fetch the apothecary from Friday Street,
Old "Galen" as the Mermaid christened him.
At that same moment, as the maid went out,
Stukeley came in. He met her at the door;
And, chucking her under the chin, gave her a letter.
"Take this up to your mistress. It concerns
Her property," he said. "Say that I wait,
And would be glad to speak with her."
The wench
Looked pertly in his face, and tripped upstairs.
I scarce could trust my hands.
"Sir Lewis," I said,
"This is no time to trouble her. She is ill."
"Let her decide," he answered, with a sneer.
Before I found another word to say
The maid tripped down again. I scarce believed
My senses, when she beckoned him up the stair.
Shaking from head to foot, I blocked the way.
"Property!" Could the crux of mine and thine
Bring widow and murderer into one small room?
"Sir Lewis," I said, "she is ill. It is not right!
She never would consent."
He sneered again,
"You are her doctor? Out of the way, old fool!
She has decided!"
"Go," I said to the maid,
"Fetch the apothecary. Let it rest
With him!"
She tossed her head. Her quick eyes glanced,
Showing the white, like the eyes of a vicious mare.
She laughed at Stukeley, loitered, then obeyed.

And so we waited, till the wench returned,
With Galen at her heels. His wholesome face,
Russet and wrinkled like an apple, peered
Shrewdly at Stukeley, twinkled once at me,
And passed in silence, leaving a whiff of herbs
Behind him on the stair.
Five minutes later,
To my amazement, that same wholesome face
Leaned from the lighted door above, and called
"Sir Lewis Stukeley!"
Sir Judas hastened up.
The apothecary followed him within.
The door shut. I was left there in the dark
Bewildered; for my heart was hot with thoughts
Of those last months. Our Summer's Nightingale,
Our Ocean-Shepherd from the Main-deep Sea,
The Founder of our Mermaid Fellowship,
Was this his guerdon--at the Mermaid Inn?
Was this that maid-of-honour whose romance
With Raleigh, once, had been a kingdom's talk?
Could Bess Throckmorton slight his memory thus?
"It is not right," I said, "it is not right.
She wrongs him deeply."
I leaned against the porch
Staring into the night. A ghostly ray
Above me, from her window, bridged the street,
And rested on the goldsmith's painted sign
Opposite.
I could hear the muffled voice
Of Stukeley overhead, persuasive, bland;
And then, her own, cooing, soft as a dove
Calling her mate from Eden cedar-boughs,
Flowed on and on; and then--all my flesh crept
At something worse than either, a long space
Of silence that stretched threatening and cold,
Cold as a dagger-point pricking the skin
Over my heart.
Then came a stifled cry,
A crashing door, a footstep on the stair
Blundering like a drunkard's, heavily down;
And with his gasping face one tragic mask
Of horror,--may God help me to forget
Some day the frozen awful eyes of one
Who, fearing neither hell nor heaven, has met
That ultimate weapon of the gods, the face
And serpent-tresses that turn flesh to stone--
Stukeley stumbled, groping his way out,
Blindly, past me, into the sheltering night.

* * * *

It was the last night of another year
Before I understood what punishment
Had overtaken Stukeley. Ben, and Brome--
Ben's ancient servant, but turned poet now--
Sat by the fire with the old apothecary
To see the New Year in.
The starry night
Had drawn me to the door. Could it be true
That our poor earth no longer was the hub
Of those white wheeling orbs? I scarce believed
The strange new dreams; but I had seen the veils
Rent from vast oceans and huge continents,
Till what was once our comfortable fire,
Our cosy tavern, and our earthly home
With heaven beyond the next turn in the road,
All the resplendent fabric of our world
Shrank to a glow-worm, lighting up one leaf
In one small forest, in one little land,
Among those wild infinitudes of God.
A tattered wastrel wandered down the street,
Clad in a seaman's jersey, staring hard
At every sign. Beneath our own, the light
Fell on his red carbuncled face. I knew him--
The bo'sun, Hart.
He pointed to our sign
And leered at me. "That's her," he said, "no doubt,
The sea-witch with the shiny mackerel tail
Swishing in wine. That's what Sir Lewis meant.
He called it blood. Blood is his craze, you see.
This is the Mermaid Tavern, sir, no doubt?"
I nodded. "Ah, I thought as much," he said.
"Well--happen this is worth a cup of ale."
He thrust his hand under his jersey and lugged
A greasy letter out. It was inscribed
THE APOTHECARY AT THE MERMAID TAVERN.

I led him in. "I knew it, sir," he said,
While Galen broke the seal. "Soon as I saw
That sweet young naked wench curling her tail
In those red waves.--The old man called it blood.
Blood is his craze, you see.--But you can tell
'Tis wine, sir, by the foam. Malmsey, no doubt.
And that sweet wench to make you smack your lips
Like oysters, with her slippery tail and all!
Why, sir, no doubt, this was the Mermaid Inn."

"But this," said Galen, lifting his grave face
To Ben, "this letter is from all that's left
Of Stukeley. The good host, there, thinks I wronged
Your Ocean-shepherd's memory. From this letter,
I think I helped to avenge him. Do not wrong
His widow, even in thought. She loved him dearly.
You know she keeps his poor grey severed head
Embalmed; and so will keep it till she dies;
Weeps over it alone. I have heard such things
In wild Italian tales. But _this_ was true.
Had I refused to let her speak with Stukeley
I feared she would go mad. This letter proves
That I--and she perhaps--were instruments,
Of some more terrible chirurgery
Than either knew."

"Ah, when I saw your sign,"
The bo'sun interjected, "I'd no doubt
That letter was well worth a cup of ale."

"Go--paint your bows with hell-fire somewhere else,
Not at this inn," said Ben, tossing the rogue
A good French crown. "Pickle yourself in hell."
And Hart lurched out into the night again,
Muttering "Thank you, sirs. 'Twas worth all that.
No doubt at all."

"There are some men," said Galen,
Spreading the letter out on his plump knees,
"Will heap up wrong on wrong; and, at the last,
Wonder because the world will not forget
Just when it suits them, cancel all they owe,
And, like a mother, hold its arms out wide
At their first cry. And, sirs, I do believe
That Stukeley, on that night, had some such wish
To reconcile himself. What else had passed
Between the widow and himself I know not;
But she had lured him on until he thought
That words and smiles, perhaps a tear or two,
Might make the widow take the murderer's hand
In friendship, since it might advantage both.
Indeed, he came prepared for even more.
Villains are always fools. A wicked act,
What is it but a false move in the game,
A blind man's blunder, a deaf man's reply,
The wrong drug taken in the dead of night?
I always pity villains.
I mistook
The avenger for the victim. There she lay
Panting, that night, her eyes like summer stars
Her pale gold hair upon the pillows tossed
Dishevelled, while the fever in her face
Brought back the lost wild roses of her youth
For half an hour. Against a breast as pure
And smooth as any maid's, her soft arms pressed
A bundle wrapped in a white embroidered cloth.
She crooned over it as a mother croons
Over her suckling child. I stood beside her.
--That was her wish, and mine, while Stukeley stayed.--
And, over against me, on the other side,
Stood Stukeley, gnawing his nether lip to find
She could not, or she would not, speak one word
In answer to his letter.

'Lady Raleigh,
You wrong me, and you wrong yourself,' he cried,
'To play like a green girl when great affairs
Are laid before you. Let me speak with you
Alone.'

'But I am all alone,' she said,
'Far more alone than I have ever been
In all my life before. This is my doctor.
He must not leave me.'

Then she lured him on,
Played on his brain as a musician plays
Upon the lute.
'Forgive me, dear Sir Lewis,
If I am grown too gay for widowhood.
But I have pondered for a long, long time
On all these matters. I know the world was right;
And Spain was right, Sir Lewis. Yes, and you,
You too, were right; and my poor husband wrong.
You see I knew his mind so very well.
I knew his every gesture, every smile.
I lived with him. I think I died with him.
It is a strange thing, marriage. For my soul
(As if myself were present in this flesh)
Beside him, slept in his grey prison-cell
On that last dreadful dawn. I heard the throng
Murmuring round the scaffold far away;
And, with the smell of sawdust in my nostrils,
I woke, bewildered as himself, to see
That tall black-cassocked figure by his bed.
I heard the words that made him understand:
_The Body of our Lord--take and eat this!_
I rolled the small sour flakes beneath my tongue
With him. I caught, with him, the gleam of tears,
Far off, on some strange face of sickly dread.
_The Blood_--and the cold cup was in my hand,
Cold as an axe-heft washed with waterish red.
I heard his last poor cry to wife and child.--
Could any that heard forget it?--_My true God,
Hold you both in His arms, both in His arms._
And then--that last poor wish, a thing to raise
A smile in some. I have smiled at it myself
A thousand times.
"_Give me my pipe_," he said,
"_My old Winchester clay, with the long stem,
And half an hour alone. The crowd can wait.
They have not waited half so long as I._"
And then, O then, I know what soft blue clouds,
What wavering rings, fragrant ascending wreaths
Melted his prison walls to a summer haze,
Through which I think he saw the little port
Of Budleigh Salterton, like a sea-bird's nest
Among the Devon cliffs--the tarry quay
Whence in his boyhood he had flung a line
For bass or whiting-pollock. I remembered
(Had he not told me, on some summer night,
His arm about my neck, kissing my hair)
He used to sit there, gazing out to sea;
Fish, and for what? Not all for what he caught
And handled; but for rainbow-coloured things,
The water-drops that jewelled his thin line,
Flotsam and jetsam of the sunset-clouds;
While the green water, gurgling through the piles,
Heaving and sinking, helped him to believe
The fast-bound quay a galleon plunging out
Superbly for Cathay. There would he sit
Listening, a radiant boy, child of the sea,
Listening to some old seaman's glowing tales,
His grey eyes rich with pictures--

Then he saw,
And I with him, that gathering in the West,
To break the Fleet Invincible. O, I heard
The trumpets and the neighings and the drums.
I watched the beacons on a hundred hills.
I drank that wine of battle from _his_ cup,
And gloried in it, lying against his heart.
I sailed with him and saw the unknown worlds!
The slender ivory towers of old Cathay
Rose for us over lilac-coloured seas
That crumbled a sky-blue foam on long shores
Of shining sand, shores of so clear a glass
They drew the sunset-clouds into their bosom
And hung that City of Vision in mid-air
Girdling it round, as with a moat of sky,
Hopelessly beautiful. O, yet I heard,
Heard from his blazoned poops the trumpeters
Blowing proud calls, while overhead the flag
Of England floated from white towers of sail--
And yet, and yet, I knew that he was wrong,
And soon he knew it, too.

I saw the cloud
Of doubt assail him, in the Bloody Tower,
When, being withheld from sailing the high seas
For sixteen years, he spread a prouder sail,
Took up his pen, and, walled about with stone,
Began to write--his _History of the World_.
And emperors came like Lazarus from the grave
To wear his purple. And the night disgorged
Its empires, till, O, like the swirl of dust
Around their marching legions, that dim cloud
Of doubt closed round him. Was there any man
So sure of heart and brain as to record
The simple truth of things himself had seen?
Then who could plumb that night? The work broke off!
He knew that he was wrong. I knew it, too!
Once more that stately structure of his dreams
Melted like mist. His eagles perished like clouds.
Death wound a thin horn through the centuries.
The grave resumed his forlorn emperors.
His empires crumbled back to a little ash
Knocked from his pipe.--
He dropped his pen in homage to the truth.
The truth? _O, eloquent, just and mighty Death!_

Then, when he forged, out of one golden thought,
A key to open his prison; when the King
Released him for a tale of faerie gold
Under the tropic palms; when those grey walls
Melted before his passion; do you think
The gold that lured the King was quite the same
As that which Raleigh saw? You know the song:

"Say to the King," quoth Raleigh,
"I have a tale to tell him;
Wealth beyond derision,
Veils to lift from the sky,
Seas to sail for England,
And a little dream to sell him,
Gold, the gold of a vision
That angels cannot buy."

Ah, no! For all the beauty and the pride,
Raleigh was wrong; but not so wrong, I think,
As those for whom his kingdoms oversea
Meant only glittering dust. The fight he waged
Was not with them. They never worsted him.

It was _The Destiny_ that brought him home
Without the Spanish gold.--O, he was wrong,
But such a wrong, in Gloriana's day,
Was more than right, was immortality.
He had just half an hour to put all this
Into his pipe and smoke it,--

The red fire,
The red heroic fire that filled his veins
When the proud flag of England floated out
Its challenge to the world--all gone to ash?
What! Was the great red wine that Drake had quaffed
Vinegar? He must fawn, haul down his flag,
And count all nations nobler than his own,
Tear out the lions from the painted shields
That hung his poop, for fear that he offend
The pride of Spain? Treason to sack the ships
Of Spain? The wounds of slaughtered Englishmen
Cried out--_there is no law beyond the line!_
Treason to sweep the seas with Francis Drake?
Treason to fight for England?
If it were so,
The times had changed and quickly. He had been
A schoolboy in the morning of the world
Playing with wooden swords and winning crowns
Of tinsel; but his comrades had outgrown
Their morning-game, and gathered round to mock
His battles in the sunset. Yet he knew
That all his life had passed in that brief day;
And he was old, too old to understand
The smile upon the face of Buckingham,
The smile on Cobham's face, at that great word
_England_!
He knew the solid earth was changed
To something less than dust among the stars--
And, O, be sure he knew that he was wrong,
That gleams would come,
Gleams of a happier world for younger men,
That Commonwealth, far off. This was a time
Of sadder things, destruction of the old
Before the new was born. At least he knew
It was his own way that had brought the world
Thus far, England thus far! How could he change,
Who had loved England as a man might love
His mistress, change from year to fickle year?
For the new years would change, even as the old.
No--he was wedded to that old first love,
Crude flesh and blood, and coarse as meat and drink,
The woman--England; no fine angel-isle,
Ruled by that male Salome--Buckingham!
Better the axe than to live on and wage
These new and silent and more deadly wars
That play at friendship with our enemies.
Such times are evil. Not of their own desire
They lead to good, blind agents of that Hand
Which now had hewed him down, down to his knees,
But in a prouder battle than men knew.

His pipe was out, the guard was at the door.
Raleigh was not a god. But, when he climbed
The scaffold, I believe he looked a man.
And when the axe fell, I believe that God
Set on his shoulders that immortal head
Which he desired on earth.

O, he was wrong!
But when that axe fell, not one shout was raised.
That mighty throng around that crimson block
Stood silent--like the hushed black cloud that holds
The thunder. You might hear the headsman's breath.
Stillness like that is dangerous, being charged,
Sometimes, with thought, Sir Lewis! England sleeps!
What if, one day, the Stewart should be called
To know that England wakes? What if a shout
Should thunder-strike Whitehall, and the dogs lift
Their heads along the fringes of the crowd
To catch a certain savour that I know,
The smell of blood and sawdust?--

Ah, Sir Lewis,
'Tis hard to find one little seed of right
Among so many wrongs. Raleigh was wrong,
And yet--it was because he loved his country
Next to himself, Sir Lewis, by your leave,
His country butchered him. You did not know
That I was only third in his affections?
The night I told him--we were parting then--
I had begged the last disposal of his body,
Did he not say, with O, so gentle a smile,
"_Thou hadst not always the disposal of it
In life, dear Bess. 'Tis well it should be thine
In death!_"'

'The jest was bitter at such an hour,
And somewhat coarse in grain,' Stukeley replied.
'Indeed I thought him kinder.'

'Kinder,' she said,
Laughing bitterly.

Stukeley looked at her.
She whispered something, and his lewd old eyes
Fastened upon her own. He knelt by her.
'Perhaps,' he said, 'your woman's wit has found
A better way to solve this bitter business.'
Her head moved on the pillow with little tossings.
He touched her hand. It leapt quickly away.
She hugged that strange white bundle to her breast,
And writhed back, smiling at him, across the bed.

'Ah, Bess,' he whispered huskily, pressing his lips
To that warm hollow where her head had lain,
'There is one way to close the long dispute,
Keep the estates unbroken in your hands
And stop all slanderous tongues, one happy way.
We have some years to live; and why alone?'
'Alone?' she sighed. 'My husband thought of that.
He wrote a letter to me long ago,
When he was first condemned. He said--he said--
Now let me think--what was it that he said?--
I had it all by heart. "_Beseech you, Bess,
Hide not yourself for many days_", he said.'
'True wisdom that,' quoth Stukeley, 'for the love
That seeks to chain the living to the dead
Is but self-love at best!'

'And yet,' she said,
'How his poor heart was torn between two cares,
Love of himself and care for me, as thus:

_Love God! Begin to repose yourself on Him!
Therein you shall find true and lasting riches;
But all the rest is nothing. When you have tired
Your thoughts on earthly things, when you have travelled
Through all the glittering pomps of this proud world
You shall sit down by Sorrow in the end.
Begin betimes, and teach your little son
To serve and fear God also.
Then God will be a husband unto you,
And unto him a father; nor can Death
Bereave you any more. When I am gone,
No doubt you shall be sought unto by many
For the world thinks that I was very rich.
No greater misery can befall you, Bess,
Than to become a prey, and, afterwards,
To be despised.'_

'Human enough,' said Stukeley,
'And yet--self-love, self-love!'

'Ah no,' quoth she,
'You have not heard the end: _God knows, I speak it
Not to dissuade you_--not to dissuade you, mark--
_From marriage. That will be the best for you,
Both in respect of God and of the world._
Was _that_ self-love, Sir Lewis? Ah, not all.
And thus he ended: _For his father's sake
That chose and loved you in his happiest times,
Remember your poor child! The Everlasting,
Infinite, powerful, and inscrutable God,
Keep you and yours, have mercy upon me,
And teach me to forgive my false accusers_--
Wrong, even in death, you see. Then--_My true wife,
Farewell!
Bless my poor boy! Pray for me! My true God,
Hold you both in His arms, both in His arms!_
I know that he was wrong. You did not know,
Sir Lewis, that he had left me a little child.
Come closer. You shall see its orphaned face,
The sad, sad relict of a man that loved
His country--all that's left to me. Come, look!'
She beckoned Stukeley nearer. He bent down
Curiously. Her feverish fingers drew

The white wrap from the bundle in her arms,
And, with a smile that would make angels weep,
She showed him, pressed against her naked breast,
Terrible as Medusa, the grey flesh
And shrivelled face, embalmed, the thing that dropped
Into the headsman's basket, months agone,--
The head of Raleigh.
Half her body lay
Bare, while she held that grey babe to her heart;
But Judas hid his face....
'Living,' she said, 'he was not always mine;
But--dead--I shall not wean him'--
Then, I too
Covered my face--I cannot tell you more.
There was a dreadful silence in that room,
Silence that, as I know, shattered the brain
Of Stukeley.--When I dared to raise my head
Beneath that silent thunder of our God,
The man had gone--
This is his letter, sirs,
Written from Lundy Island: "_For God's love,
Tell them it is a cruel thing to say
That I drink blood. I have no secret sin.
A thousand pound is not so great a sum;
And that is all they paid me, every penny.
Salt water, that is all the drink I taste
On this rough island. Somebody has taught
The sea-gulls how to wail around my hut
All night, like lost souls. And there is a face,
A dead man's face that laughs in every storm,
And sleeps in every pool along the coast.
I thought it was my own, once. But I know
These actions never, never, on God's earth,
Will turn out to their credit, who believe
That I drink blood._"
He crumpled up the letter
And tossed it into the fire.
"Galen," said Ben,
"I think you are right--that one should pity villains."

* * * *

The clock struck twelve. The bells began to peal.
We drank a cup of sack to the New Year.
"New songs, new voices, all as fresh as may,"
Said Ben to Brome, "but I shall never live
To hear them."

All was not so well, indeed,
With Ben, as hitherto. Age had come upon him.
He dragged one foot as in paralysis.
The critics bayed against the old lion, now,
And called him arrogant. "My brain," he said,
"Is yet unhurt although, set round with pain,
It cannot long hold out." He never stooped,
Never once pandered to that brainless hour.
His coat was thread-bare. Weeks had passed of late
Without his voice resounding in our inn.

"The statues are defiled, the gods dethroned,
The Ionian movement reigns, not the free soul.
And, as for me, I have lived too long," he said.
"Well--I can weave the old threnodies anew."
And, filling his cup, he murmured, soft and low,
A new song, breaking on an ancient shore:

I

Marlowe is dead, and Greene is in his grave,
And sweet Will Shakespeare long ago is gone!
Our Ocean-shepherd sleeps beneath the wave;
Robin is dead, and Marlowe in his grave.
Why should I stay to chant an idle stave,
And in my Mermaid Tavern drink alone?
For Kit is dead and Greene is in his grave,
And sweet Will Shakespeare long ago is gone.

II

Where is the singer of the Faerie Queen?
Where are the lyric lips of Astrophel?
Long, long ago, their quiet graves were green;
Ay, and the grave, too, of their Faerie Queen!
And yet their faces, hovering here unseen,
Call me to taste their new-found oenomel;
To sup with him who sang the Faerie Queen;
To drink with him whose name was Astrophel.

III

I drink to that great Inn beyond the grave!
--If there be none, the gods have done us wrong.--
Ere long I hope to chant a better stave,
In some great Mermaid Inn beyond the grave;
And quaff the best of earth that heaven can save,
Red wine like blood, deep love of friends and song.
I drink to that great Inn beyond the grave;
And hope to greet my golden lads ere long.

He raised his cup and drank in silence. Brome
Drank with him, too. The bells had ceased to peal.
Galen shook hands, and bade us all good-night.
Then Brome, a little wistfully, I thought,
Looked at his old-time master, and prepared
To follow.
"Good-night--Ben," he said, a pause
Before he spoke the name. "Good-night! Good-night!
My dear old Brome," said Ben.
And, at the door,
Brome whispered to me, "He is lonely now.
There are not many left of his old friends.
We all go out--like this--into the night.
But what a fleet of stars!" he said, and shook
My hand, and smiled, and pointed to the sky.
And, when I looked into the room again,
The lights were very dim, and I believed
That Ben had fallen asleep. His great grey head
Was bowed across the table, on his arms.
Then, all at once, I knew that he was weeping;
And like a shadow I crept back again,
And stole into the night.
There as I stood
Under the painted sign, I could have vowed
That I, too, heard the voices of the dead,
The voices of his old companions,
Gathering round him in that lonely room,
Till all the timbers of the Mermaid Inn
Trembled above me with their ghostly song:

I

Say to the King, quoth Raleigh
I have a tale to tell him,
Wealth beyond derision,
Veils to lift from the sky,
Seas to sail for England
And a little dream to sell him,--
Gold, the gold of a vision,
That angels cannot buy.

II

Fair thro' the walls of his dungeon,
--What were the stones but a shadow?--
Streamed the light of the rapture,
The lure that he followed of old,
The dream of his old companions,
The vision of El Dorado,
The fleet that they never could capture,
The City of Sunset-gold.

III

Yet did they sail the seas
And, dazed with exceeding wonder,
Straight through the sunset-glory
Plunge into the dawn:
Leaving their home behind them,
By a road of splendour and thunder,
They came to their home in amazement
Simply by sailing on.

[The end]
Alfred Noyes's poem: Raleigh

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